


Blank Pages

by kxkka



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, I have no idea what to tag this honestly, M/M, That Would Be Enough - Freeform, book store au, introspective, it's like the only way I know how to write I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10026740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kxkka/pseuds/kxkka
Summary: Alexander is done with trying to "make it". What does that even mean?He opens a book store. He's not sure what he expects, but he could never have imagined John.-And though we like to worship a genius  in a coffinWe often forget that there’s prophets among us walking[Watsky - Love Letters]





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've no idea what this is, I get in my head a lot and I need to write it down and Alexander seemed to be my vessel today.
> 
> As I was writing though, I kept coming back to the lyrics of [this Watsky song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k68_X7VYGCI) which I love and is so meaningful to me right now.

Life isn't about being the smartest in the room; it isn't about grades or prizes or awards. A life isn't measured in headlines or segments of history books. We have so many idols, so many figures to look up to. But the ones we hold dearest to our hearts, even if we never knew them, are the ones that made us feel something. And isn't life full of those people? Every day, walking next to you, going to the market, lying on couches, listening to music. Who's to say the simple people around you aren't amazing? Who's to say you won't change somebody's day, somebody's life, just by being part of a menial routine?  
I used to aim so high. I wanted to change the world, I wanted my name to be recognised. I used to bitch to myself about how long my name was, how that would make it harder for people to remember it. But who are these people I craved for? I didn't know, because I was so focused, so sure that this was my path, that I detached myself from everyone around me. I told myself I wasn't lonely, that I didn't need other people.  
This is the part of the story where I would talk about a big event, a gigantic fallout in my career that made me see it wasn't what I wanted. A job lost, a family tragedy. But life, in all its beauty, is rarely so clear. My career was going well, I didn't have any relationship with my family by conscious choice, and I surrounded myself with books and stories.

One day I found myself crying over my notebook and I didn't know why. And there was this gigantic feeling, this rock on my shoulders. And it was the world, the whole Earth, and I was Atlas, trying to hold it by myself. And I was crying and I didn't know why I kept holding it, why it was my job to do so. I would look out the window of my apartment and see people walking down the street and I wouldn't understand why they didn't take the subway to get to their destination faster. And as I was crying that day, a cloudy day, the room lit only by a small warm lamp, I tried to remember my destination. I tried to go to that place in my mind where I pictured myself, on the day of my arrival. The successful, content Alexander Hamilton that I stored there. But the hallways were confusing, and there were so many doors. I opened one and there was nothing. I opened another; nothing. When I finally found the door I thought I was looking for, there was something missing. I saw the success, the recognition; but I didn't see me.  
I spent so many years of my life defining myself in terms of work, I had forgotten who I was, and why I wanted to be that person that I used to see in my mind. I couldn't remember a time when I didn't drive myself towards that goal. Who had put that image there? Was it me? Was it someone else? Was it society? Was it some sort of higher being that wanted me to aim for the stars? And why was that so important? Why did I have to be bigger?  
I remembered all those movies about the young entrepreneur who got so caught up with business life that he forgets about love and nature and life until it gets to be so hard he pushes himself away from civilisation altogether. Was that me? Was I caught in yet another cliché? Would I go on the road with nothing but the clothes on my back and die alone and unfulfilled?

I stopped writing that day. I was only creating formulas. The perfect recipe to get me to my destination, just there and nowhere else. Every time life tried to throw me off course, I had anchored myself to my place, thinking I was being tested, and I needed to be strong. But that day, I wanted to give in. I wanted to see what else was out there. I wanted to walk the city with no destination and let it surprise me. I hated surprises. But maybe I needed to live through something I hated, to understand it. To understand myself.  
The world will always need fixing. There will always be wrongs to right. And I will be there to help. But maybe I wasn't supposed to lead the fight. Maybe I could be one of the nameless soldiers, one of the unseen, unregistered forces of nature that were essential, but small. I wouldn't be the big politician that debated and made deals and changed the world with words on bills. I would just be Alexander Hamilton, and maybe that could be enough.

I used most of my savings to open up my book store. However lost I felt, the only constant in my life had been my books. And if I was going to put a small thing out there in the world that I could be proud of, it would be books. I used to think I would write them, enlighten the world. But communication isn't just about the message, and many times it isn't about it at all. The way we approach certain messages, the way they are handed to us, or left for us to discover; I wanted to explore that. Let the writers stand up there, with the big names. Let them write the words that will heal, or break, or amaze. I can be there to make sure the right words get to the right people at the right moment.

Maybe no one will come at all. Maybe I'll be the lonely man sitting behind a counter, surrounded by books, staring out the glass door, waiting for some passer by to stop for a moment. I found that I'm somewhat at peace with that thought.

The sounds of the street interrupted my thoughts; the door had opened and a man was curiously stepping inside my book store. He was the first person to do that. I nodded at him with a smile and waited. What would I recommend for someone like him, if he so happened to ask? Would he be interested in poetry? Could he be doing research for some sort of essay? Would he be looking for a gift for a young cousin? I flipped through the drawers in my mind for the knowledge I had amassed after years of reading, anxious to pour it all out for the stranger that came into my store.

He walked around the few aisles and I lost sight of him as he reached the back of the store. He came back to view seconds later; he hadn't stopped his tranquil pace nor changed the rhythm of his walk. He looked at me and gave me a small smile that was filled with a kindness I could only ever aspire to project. He nodded and left without saying a word.  
I poured myself a cup of coffee.  
No one else came in that day.  
I closed the drawers.

-

On the fourth day, I brought a couch. The couch from my apartment upstairs. I hadn't planned any room for it at the store, but after days of seeing people come and go, buying random books with barely any human interaction, I felt like I needed it. Maybe no one would ever sit down, but its presence there might make someone feel more welcome to. It didn't make a lot of sense, but I was sitting on it when he came back.  
I didn't think I would recognise him, the man from the first day, but while I didn't remember his exact features, there was a slow motion to him that was unmistakeable. I went back to my reading to let him roam the store as he pleased. He was odd and quiet, but it felt good to have him there.

After a few moments of silence, I felt him sit down next to me. He had taken a book out of the shelves and was reading from the middle. I stared. Not at him, but at his book. His left hand held it expertly open, while the long fingers on his right hand brushed softly over the words as he read. I couldn't see the title, was it a novel? A biography? A scientific paper? How could he start in the middle? Had he read it before? Had he started some other time and was picking it back up? Did he care?

"'So tell me everything', you said, leaning forward until your elbows were balancing on your knees. 'Start at the beginning.'"  
He read out loud and turned his head towards me, closing the book slowly. A novel I hadn't read. I shifted my gaze to meet his eyes and couldn't look away. There was a warmth there that I hadn't ever felt before.

So I told him everything.  
I didn't speak of my life. I didn't tell him my name, or how I got there. I stepped inside the empty rooms in my mind and described them, trying to make sense of the feelings that weren't really there. I talked about loneliness, about homes. I talked about brushing my fingers on the spines of the books when I closed the store at night. I talked about looking upwards when it snows and getting lost in the lines of perspective barely drawn by the falling flakes.

"Start at the beginning", I said eventually, and he understood. He told me about colours he saw in his dreams. About brushing against strangers on the subway and getting goosebumps. He told me about sitting on a train for hours just taking in the changing views. He told me about entering my store for the first time.  
He talked about the dark wood, about the soft jingle of the opening door. The smell of coffee without any in sight. The kind-eyed man behind the counter who had claimed a comfortable spot in his thoughts.

"Who are you?" He spoke so softly.  
"I'm not quite sure, right now." I answered, and it was the most honest I had ever been. "I think I'm on my way to being myself though."  
The man smiled so brightly the world had to stop spinning for a fraction of a second to gasp at him. Or maybe it was just me.  
"I'm John." He said. He didn't make any movement to shake my hand. We were past that already.  
"You were my first customer, John."  
"I didn't buy anything."  
"It's okay. It wasn't the purpose of the store anyway."  
"What was?"  
"I don't know yet, but I think it starts with this conversation."  
He was still smiling when he took his eyes off me and opened his book again at another random section and began to read.  
"I'll make us some coffee" I got up and went behind the counter, to the tiny kitchen that remained hidden from view to turn on the coffee maker.

When I came back out, he was gone. We had drawn the most inspiring words in the air, leaving no trace they were ever there at all except for the strange tickling in my mind, a small rumble that made the hallway seem like it was earth instead of cement. I wondered what would happen if I tried to dig. I wondered if John had been real at all.

-

The phone rang two days later.  
A woman talked to me about bookings and events and atmosphere. I had to ask her to slow down.  
"I'm sorry, can I meet with you? I'm a lot better in person than I am on the phone, I promise. I can stop by your store in about forty minutes, would that be okay?"

Meeting Peggy Schuyler was incredible. I had never seen a person more alive. She walked in with a smile on her face and a confident step. We sat down on the couch where John and I had talked what seemed like ages ago.  
"I'm sorry for the short notice, but John has been talking about your store and how perfect it was for us and I've never been the most patient person, to be completely honest. But I refuse to go into business with someone until I've met them, no matter how highly my friends might speak of them, so can you tell me a bit about yourself and your store?"

I told her the facts. It was a completely different conversation. She seemed to like what she was hearing. I still didn't know what business she wanted to conduct with me but her wide eyes were so attentive and devoted I had almost forgotten about it as I talked about organising the shelves thematically.

Then John walked in. I realised I could never have imagined someone so bright; he was definitely real. It would be a strange moment, I thought, where the practical, down-to-earth way I had been talking to Peggy would merge with the deep conversation that John brought out in me.

"Peggy!" He smiled widely as she got up and hugged him tight. "I'm sorry I couldn't be here earlier, I got stuck in class and didn't see your text until I got home. What do you think?" He gestured around the store, not acknowledging me at all.  
Perhaps it was me that was the dream, and John was imagining me.  
"I was just about to tell Alexander. It's perfect."  
"Alexander." He repeated, looking straight at me, and for a second, the calm John I had met before was right there. "You never told me your name. It suits you."

-

Two weeks later, I brought a small coffee table down from my apartment.

A week after that, I brought the coffee maker out to the counter.

Peggy was part of an online book club and had been looking for a place to hold a real life gathering for a while. When John walked through the door that first day, he had been entranced by the store. He said he could picture the debates they had online happening right there, between the pages.  
The people came in and it seemed as though they hadn't agreed on a book beforehand but a theme, and they all talked about different works they had read and shared their views and thoughts and feelings. John searched the shelves as if the store were his own home to quote a specific passage from a novel he was thinking of. The store was full of life and it was beautiful.

After that first meeting, John stayed behind after I closed the store. We wandered in conversations, just like that first afternoon. Just like every other time we'd spent alone in the past month. But that night, he spoke with the fires of revolution burning at his throat, he spoke with big words about leaving a mark and changing the world. I cried myself to sleep that night.  
I didn't want to change the world anymore. Not like that. I had felt such a strong connection to John, but it seemed it was the small remnants of the old Alexander that had made that link, and that man wasn't me anymore. This man that had changed my days, the kindred spirit that seemed to be opening all the locked doors in my mind, he was a fighter and I had already put down my sword. It felt like my mind was playing tricks on me, making me question every choice I had made. I cried because I'd lost John. I cried because I had let one man I barely knew make me question my beliefs. I decided to lock that door.

When I walked downstairs to open the store the next day, John was waiting for me at the door. I wondered if his students were sitting alone in a classroom, asking themselves where their professor could be. I wondered if he talked with them the same way he talked with me; if I was just a different kind of student. He'd never mentioned what his class was about. I had a feeling it was about everything. He spoke softly and held my hand and no time had passed since our last conversation. No night of tears and restless sleep. He picked up where we had left off, the words left hanging since we'd said our goodbyes a few hours earlier.  
"Thinking is a revolution in its own way, Alexander. As soon as something in your mind clicks and shifts, you've changed the world."  
I kissed him.

I don't know what will happen when the kiss ends and the clock starts to spin again. I don't know if we'll fall in love or if we'll crash and burn. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I don't know if there will be a second meeting of Peggy's club, or if I'll keep bringing furniture down from my apartment to my store. I'm not even sure which one is home anymore. But there was a new door in my mind I had never seen before and I reached out with no hesitation and turned the knob.

And the door disappeared. And everything around me disappeared. And it was colour, and it was light. It was the night sky with all its stars and the infinite possibilities of constellations. It was chaos and doubt; it was everything there ever was at once. It was the future and it was me. It was an endless bookstore, filled with blank pages, waiting for me. It was a million pens writing, a million pens scratching out words and rewriting them. It was a gigantic novel, open at the middle; sentences out of context making perfect sense. There were no more drawers in my mind, I swam freely.

I kissed John and I changed the world.

**Author's Note:**

> The lines John reads from a book are from Una LaMarche's "You In Five Acts". I literally grabbed a random book from my shelf and started browsing the pages and that sentence appeared in front of me. I haven't read it yet.


End file.
